


Unwelcome Respite

by alternatedoom



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Battle, Can't Warn For Everything I Want To Warn For, Canon-Typical Violence, Flirting, Gen, Legion Cinematic Trailer Spoilers, Legion Datamining Spoilers, Legion Spoilers I Mean It, Warcraft Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 02:42:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5357957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alternatedoom/pseuds/alternatedoom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A break in the battle for the Broken Shore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unwelcome Respite

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. SPOILERS. Spoilers for the Legion trailer and for alpha and datamining.  
> 2\. Read at your own risk because to avoid spoiling people who don't want to be, I can't warn for everything I otherwise would.  
> 3\. Written for the World of Warcraft Kink Meme but without kink of any kind.  
> 4\. 12/9/15 - Put a two-sentence band-aid on a sloppy lore error. Whoops.

He strides up the rocky beach during a lull in the fighting, the first slowdown in what feels like hours since he clawed his way to the surface and waded out of the sea.

The needles of his compass spun wildly before he lost it to the ocean. Varian can only assume the dark magic all around them is disrupting natural law and skewing the elements out of control, and Goldrinn's blessing too seems diminished here. The break gives Varian just enough time to become aware of a feeling he hasn't experienced in battle in years: his limbs are tired. The force of hitting the water had knocked all the breath from him, and the consciousness for a few seconds too, but he'd struggled up from the depths where many men would have been drowned by the weight of their armor. And he's fought dripping wet in the minutes or hours since; he remembers now that fighting wet was not his favorite circumstance under which to fight, for the additional burden of water-saturated padding under plate and chainmail tires even the youngest and the greatest of warriors much faster.

He's survived thus far, yes, but he's sharply, regretfully aware he's no longer young, his muscles not withstanding the exertion of sustained battle as well as they once did. He doesn't let himself feel the fatigue, though, or the cold clamminess of his skin, wet with sweat and seawater. Not fully, not yet. He is still in his prime, he has plenty of fight left in him, and there are tens of thousands of demons before them yet to bring down. Hundreds of thousands. 

Dark vicissitudes have come upon them. He surveys the beach, the demons all around, some still attacking distant soldiers, some regrouping.

This will be the great war of his time.

Varian doesn't think of himself as a hard man, though he knows many see him thusly. He would agree that he is not a man given to _feelings_. But he has a warrior's instincts and is not given to ignoring his gut, and he has a creeping feeling now, like a cold finger tracing slowly up his spine to chill the back of his neck. A tingle of premonition. Known for his fearlessness, he has a disquieting sense his number might come up. He doesn't want the time or space to think because what he thinks is that he does not want to die out here, on these distant isles so far from his kingdom, from the familiar corners of his keep, and the son he loves so deeply it aches him. With age has come a new appreciation for the sweet comforts of home. As he'd written in what he fears may be the last letter he ever pens, Varian has lived by the sword... but he's changed, he knows that now. He does not want to die by the sword, not here, not now. He wants to see Anduin wed, hold his first grandchild in his arms, eventually hang up his blade and grow old in days of peace.

These thoughts make him feel even wearier.

He senses movement behind him. His body responds on instinct and he's grateful to fight for his life again, to resume swinging his weapons and exist in the moment and not think these haunting thoughts. He whirls ready to slash and impale but it's only Sylvanas standing there regarding him with amusement, and so he halts and lowers his swords. He looks her over, enemy to enemy, ally to ally. There hadn't been time earlier. Her bow appears to be made with two spines, which logically should make quite the useless bow; the weapon must be imbued with some magic to make it supple, for her archery is impeccable, with every arrow he's seen her fire finding the mark she seeks. Her boots, he notes, are heeled. Nothing so high as to be impractical, she moves lithely in them, but even so.

Her face is more still than any living mortal's, corpse-frozen until she alters her expression. But she looks more animated, more vital, as though this invasion has given her new purpose. Her eyes have a slight sparkle he doesn't remember from... when had he last seen her? He has to think about it for a second before it comes to him-- Garrosh's cavernous underground throne room.

"You crashed into my ship," she says lightly, leaning on her bow. The accusation is playful, not serious.

He squints up at the sky a moment, dark but lit by occasional flashes of deathly fel green. He doesn't see the Horde flagship now, but he'd caught a glimpse of its bulk earlier when he rose out of the waves. "It's still airborne," he tells her.

"No thanks to your captain. I'll be sending you the bill," she says, with that same whimsical spirit.

In Varian's opinion, this is no time for jokes.

"You saved my life up there," he says, because the act deserves acknowledgement, and because that's as close to a 'thank you' as he wants to come with her.

Sylvanas has a cold face, and it's not all her red eyes or her stillness. A contributing factor is that the corners of her mouth fall into a natural downturn when her expression is neutral. So it takes only the most minute straightening of her lips for her to produce the same tiny smirk she'd worn on the bridge of her gunship. She answers even his statement of gratitude teasingly, her voice sweet as honey but somehow grating from her dead throat. "Of course. If you'd fallen from that height, between the impact and the sharks, there'd have been nothing left to bring back."

The way she says it, and of course simply because it's her, he knows she's not talking about returning his remains to Stormwind, to Anduin. Does she mean it, or is this just her idea of more clever repartee? Varian is speechless for a second with the implication, and it turns out that's all the time fate has allotted.

"Try not to die," she advises archly, bantering to the last, and she winks at him delicately. Varian does not do banter, but he can recognize when a woman's flirting with him. He doesn't want to think about any of it right now. Sylvanas draws an arrow and turns to face the approaching horde of demons as the next wave of the battle crests and crashes down over them.

The return to the tumult is the real respite, and Varian welcomes it. The odds are overwhelmingly against them, and the sense of fatigue has not left him. But shouting another battle cry, rallying his men to him, Varian charges again into the fray, where his troubled thoughts finally grind to a halt and cease, as he returns to the perfect clarity of the mind-space where all that matters is striking the next foe down and the one after that, on and on.

Later, when he lies on his back feeling himself draining away, his life and everything that he is drawing to a prescient close, when time has slowed down but his mind is flying a mile a moment, and his thoughts have again bent mostly towards Anduin and a bit to his years-faded memories of Tiffin, he remembers the Banshee Queen's tiny, coy smirk.


End file.
